National Resistance Movement (NRM) party leader, President Museveni (R), poses for a photo with its flagbearer in the Kawempe North by-election, Faridah Nambi, during the final campaign day in Kampala on March 11, 2025. PHOTO/HANDOUT
The ruling National Residence Movement (NRM) candidate in the Kawempe North by-election, Ms Faridah Nambi, has withdrawn her court petition seeking a vote recount after she lost to the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP)’s Elias Luyimbazi Nalukoola.
In the letter dated March 25, 2025 to Kawempe Chief Magistrate, through her lawyer Dennis Atwijukire, Ms Nambi, who filed the petition four days ago, said she had decided to pull back because her application had been overtaken by events following the gazetting of Mr Nalukoola yesterday.
“We have instructions from the applicant [Nambi] to withdraw the application because the first respondent (Electoral Commission) has already gazetted the second respondent and so the application has been overtaken by events,” Mr Atwijukire’s letter reads in part.
Ms Nambi had petitioned the court seeking a vote recount on grounds that the Electoral Commission cheated her by declaring Nalukoola victor of the March 13 bloody exercise that left several opposition leaders and journalists brutalized, injured and/ or arrested by security operatives, who included the Uganda People’s Defence Forces and the Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce (JATT).
The NRM director of legal services, Mr Enoch Barata, also confirmed the withdrawal of the petition, arguing that it had been overtaken by events.
“We had initially requested for vote count, but the application was overtaken by events. It does not make sense to continue when the gazette exercise was done,” he said.
However, Mr Barata said: “There will be a petition to challenge the results, and the grounds are very clear. There were high levels of intimidation of the NRM supporters and voters before and after the election day which is a violation of electoral rules.”
The NUP Secretary General, David Lewis Rubongoya, welcomed the NRM move for the withdrawal of their application.
“The application was dead on arrival as it was ill-conceived, without basis and unlawful as it was filed out of time. Hopefully, they can now exercise some shame---if they're still capable of having any---and let Nalukoola swear in and embark on his duties. If their strategy is to divert the whole nation and focus it on Kawempe while they continue to loot and plunder, it will certainly fail,” he said.
Mr Nalukoola beat nine other candidates to win the election to replace NUP’s Muhammad Ssegirinya, who died in January this year after spending months in hospital and prison on charges of murder, aiding and abetting terrorism following the infamous machete attacks in greater Masaka that left 26 people killed in 2021.
